9: The Offensive-Defensive Allianc
An Indian wailing in the darkness filled everything, although there was nothing to fill, simply a space stretching out in all directions. The sound was like thunder, but in reverse: it was high-pitched like a hysterical woman’s, with throaty reverberations, a real cry, as if trying to say something. The many animals of the plain froze with terror when they heard it. They were already nervous from the storm, which had crept up on them as they waited for night; so that the darkness and the storm became tangled up together. The shadows had closed in, heavy with black clouds; the opaque, the voluminous, the quasi-sculptural vied with each other in the sky; a strong wind that rose as the air pressure dropped suddenly, only added to the effect. Above the silence of the wind hung the fear of not being able to see a thing. The constellations did not disappear. Reality did. And then, these lamentations.
The three friends, who were about to go to sleep after their dinner and tea, were also petrified. They were worried by the storm, which threatened to flood them out: they could not believe their bad luck that this should happen on the very night they had emerged into the open after their stay underground. The weeping did not so much terrify them as take them aback. The Indians were always so reserved in these matters. And the sound was such a screech, so effeminate!
“What’s that?” Carlos Alzaga Prior asked, casting uneasy glances into the shadows.
The other two did not reply. The sounds went on at a distance they found hard to judge. The fire they had lit blinded them to anything beyond it.
Then Clarke and Gauna both spoke at once, their words immediately revealing their different attitudes toward the world.
“Could it be someone wounded?” the Englishman said.
“Could it be a queer?” the gaucho said.
Both their suppositions were wide of the mark. The “ayayay” went on, seeming as though at any moment it might offer some explanation of itself. The howling wind forced its way into their perception, just as thunder began to roll slowly all around them. Everything became sinister. They could not, or would not, believe it, but the stranger was drawing closer. He must have seen the fire. The tricks the wind was playing had made it hard to tell which direction he was coming from, and they still did so. All at once there was a flash of lightning, followed by an incredible sizzling sound, and a boom that shook the earth. The lightning streak stood out quite clearly: a snaking thread that pricked the horizon. These dry rays were the worst thing imaginable. Gauna got up to cover the horses, whose manes had stood on end with electricity. The other two helped him without a word. When they touched the animals, they could feel small shocks run through their own bodies. They needed to think of covering themselves too, because huge drops of rain had started to shoot down like bullets. Still the wailing continued. Now, when they listened to it again after recovering from their shock, it sounded theatrical, unconvincing, unworthy of the moment, too private to be able to compete with a far greater fury. There was something of a call for help about it. Although none of them said as much, they felt it was a shame the lightning had not struck at what must have been a wide open mouth. Their fire began to die out, pulled by the wind into long, flickering tongues of flame. They sat without moving, waiting for something to define itself before they went to sleep. There was a rapid series of lightning flashes, and Gauna said he had spotted the stranger. He pointed out into the gloom. Then everything went dark again, and the first torrent of rain began to fall. Another flash of lightning, with another ray streaking downward, a multiple thunderclap that rolled on and on, and the others saw him too: a horseman who seemed motionless in the white glare, but then as darkness swallowed him up again, was definitely coming toward them. After one particularly loud howl, he subsided into sobs, a kind of shrill murmur. He was almost upon them. Clarke felt irritated: he was in no mood to talk, to ask questions, nothing. The rain was already soaking his head. The stranger was right next to them now, and by the dying glow of the sputtering fire they were astounded to see that it was none other than Mallén, Cafulcurá’s favorite shaman.
“Mallén, what are you doing here?” Clarke exclaimed, without even thinking to help him from his horse.
A faint polite squint flitted behind the Indian’s tears as he dismounted.
“Do you think we could heat some water to make him tea?” Clarke asked Gauna.
“That’d be rather difficult,” the gaucho deigned to reply, staring down sarcastically at the puddle where their fire had been.
“Don’t worry about me,” Mallén said, choking back his tears, “I’ve already eaten. All I want to do now is die.”
So Clarke would have to talk anyway. Around them the darkness was complete, but the frequent flashes of lightning allowed them occasionally to glimpse each other’s faces. The Indian sat down, and Clarke went over until he was almost touching him, since otherwise the noise of the pouring rain would have made it impossible for them to hear each other. After throwing a blanket across Mallén’s sunken shoulders, Carlos did the same. Gauna on the other hand wished them all goodnight, wrapped himself in his poncho and settled down to sleep. This lack of curiosity was entirely typical of him.
“My surprise,” Clarke began, “comes not only at seeing you so far from Salinas Grandes, but at the state you’re in. I take it for granted there’s bad news: but what exactly?”
“Ah, Mister Clarke, a great misfortune has befallen our people, the worst misfortune. The worst, the worst.”
“Have they all killed each other?”
“Don’t worry, it will soon come to that.” A loud sigh. Although usually so talkative, Mallén now seemed unwilling to speak. His dejection sealed his lips. They had to drag the words out of him. The external circumstances (the soaking they were getting, the claps of thunder, the cold) were partly responsible, but Mallén himself was more to blame, and eventually Clarke became
impatient.
“Come on man, spit it out. If you don’t, how can I find out what’s wrong? Start from when we left. What happened then?”
“Nothing.”
“How interesting. Didn’t your chieftain reappear?”
“What d’you think?”
“Nor Namuncurá?”
“No sign at all. Not even Alvarito came back.”
“We were in Coliqueo’s camp when. .”
“Ah, yes. That too. Unfortunately Juana Pitiley also vanished, and she’s the only one with enough authority to prevent that kind of rashness.”
“So then you’re more or less leaderless.”
“Aha.”
“Did you agree to a truce with Coliqueo at least?”
“Yes, but that treacherous rat is already preparing to break his word.”
“How do you know?”
“What else would he do? All he has to do is think: ‘So then they’re more or less leaderless.’. .”
He imitated Clarke’s accent perfectly, but the Englishman decided not to take offense.
“I can’t believe it.”
“He’s rounding up all the warriors he can lay hands on.”
“Well, at any rate you can make a stand against him, and successfully, I’m sure.”
“What with? Farts?”
This vulgarity was so unusual in the polite shaman that it gave Clarke pause for thought. How fragile the Mapuche make-up must be, to disintegrate into such unpleasantness at the first
obstacle!
“But I suppose you’re also recruiting your friends. Cafulcurá’s network of alliances can’t break down just because he has temporarily disappeared.”